


As We Fall

by nofluxgiven, RedTeamShark, Sagittae, TwinVax



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Critical Robin, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 00:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15762906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nofluxgiven/pseuds/nofluxgiven, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sagittae/pseuds/Sagittae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinVax/pseuds/TwinVax
Summary: Fjord had avoided the origins of his powers for as long as he could.But his patron was tired of waiting.





	As We Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the Critical Role Round Robin Challenge! Thanks to [bboiseux](https://bboiseux.tumblr.com/) for hosting this! And another huge thanks to my team (listed as co-authors) for really shaping the direction of the fic! I'm excited to post the next chapter sometime in during this week.
> 
> The Critical Role Round Robin Fic Challenge occured between July 8th and August 18th 2018. During this time, writers started a new fic and then passed it around their group, each writer adding their contribution until the fic went full circle and returned to its original writer. The last couple of weeks were used to revise and fully flesh out what the other authors added. 
> 
> This idea was formed way before the events of episode 20 and onward, so sorry if there are some details that are inaccurate. - Sagittae

There were bits and pieces missing from his mind, that much Fjord was aware of.

In fact, over the past few weeks, it seemed like he was losing something… There were spaces in time that he couldn’t recall, there were strange whispered thoughts that weren’t his own, and most disturbingly, there was a power coursing through his veins that wasn’t his. After the dream with the eye, he had known that some things were going to change. He knew that he wouldn’t be the same. However, he was also smart enough to realize that one didn’t just gain power from nothing. And this was why, for the next few weeks after the dream, he kept waiting warily – waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But it never did.

Months went by, and soon that turned into a year. The constant feeling of dread and anticipation faded into the background, only to return when something else would happen. It wasn’t as bad when he was shooting magic from the falchion, but once he started conjuring specters, shades that followed his commands, the others began to ask questions again.

“Where did you say you got that sword?”

“How are you doing that?”

“ _Why_ can you do that?”

Luckily, he had gained enough of their trust and knew how to talk his way around the pressing questions. A few comforting words and reassurances eased their minds. Jester went back to joking with him about his sailor days, Molly complimented his fighting techniques, and Nott just seemed to appreciate the magic that he had at his disposal.

Beau and Caleb were a bit more… skeptical.

“It’s certainly nothing like I have ever seen before,” Caleb had said, observing the spectre closely. “Is it connected to your blade?”

Fjord had made it a habit long ago to tell the group the truth. “I think so. I’m not exactly sure how it works, though. It just… happens.”

It just wasn’t the _whole_ truth, but enough to where he didn’t feel the horrible stab of guilt in his gut.

Fjord had known that whatever power he had obtained didn’t exactly come with pure intentions. There had been too many times where he wondered if he was doing the right thing. Every decision he made was guided by subtle whispers in his head — the words that he had heard just a few weeks after they had become a group were always in the back of his mind. Sometimes he just didn’t know if listening to them was the best choice.

_Grow. Learn. Provoke. Consume._

Beau hummed in thought, “I don’t know, man. I’m pretty sure that using swords that give you creepy shadow powers is a big red flag that something else is going on.”

Molly waved away her concerns, “It’s fine, _he’s_ fine. Those powers have saved our skins countless times, I don’t think we should write them off so easily.”

“Hey, I’m just saying–.”

“No, you’re just _worrying_.”

While the two ended up bickering, Fjord didn’t notice Caleb was still watching him. Trying to ease the tension from the situation, he offered a way into a conversation. “What do you make of all of this?”

The wizard gave him a look, as if he was thinking over his answer, but eventually he said quietly. “I think… It is something we will have to watch. It is not good to make hasty assumptions.”

Fjord nodded at that, the feeling of rising panic slowly subsiding. They were both silent for the next few moments. A little further to the right and closer to their campfire, Nott and Jester were using their smaller magic spells to create flashing lights around Beau and Molly’s heads while they continued to snip at one another.

He was smiling contently at the sight, when Caleb began to speak to him again in a hushed tone. “Fjord… Over the past year, we have fought side by side. Nott has come to trust you – _I_ have come to trust you…. You would tell us if something was wrong.”

It was not a question, but a statement with a silent plea behind it. A brief flash of yellow interrupted his vision.

_Knowledge… Yours. Tell… Nothing._

The voice was so forceful this time that it nearly made him dizzy with its intensity. Once he was able to focus again, he tried to soothe Caleb’s worries. “I would. I just… I’m not entirely sure of what’s going on, myself… But I am certain when I say that I’m not trying to harm anyone with these powers… Unless the job calls for it, of course.”

Caleb turned to him and Fjord could see the dim light of the fire dancing in his eyes. When he looked closer, something about him seemed almost... sad. He appeared to be staring beyond Fjord, focusing on a distant thought. That feeling was only cemented when Caleb said, “Power can do horrible things in the wrong hands.”

The intensity behind his stare nearly made Fjord flinch, but he met his gaze and said firmly, “I’m not like that.”

There was a moment of searching – of analyzing – before the other man finally nodded.

“I believe you.”

Caleb gave him a rare, albeit small, smile. Fjord grinned back and watched as his friend joined in the fun by creating his four floating lights above Jester and Nott and changing them into different colors while also spinning them in the air. Molly and Beau finally seemed to realize what the others were doing and both laughed good naturedly.

Fjord felt a warmth bloom in his chest at the sounds and sights of his friends together. After everything they had been through as a group — well, they were more than just that now. He never thought that he would ever have something so close to a family, even when he was a sailor. His crewmates would fight together and protect one another, sure, but not the same way that the Mighty Nein did.

There were more shouts and bouts of laughter towards the campfire when Nott took out a small flute. She started to play a string of notes, further encouraged by Jester’s dancing and Beau’s, “Fuck yeah!”

The carefree moment was short lived, however, when Fjord felt a presence in the back of his mind.

Suddenly, all he could see was a blue-green void and in the distance, there was a bright, glowing eye watching him. The previous feelings of warmth and fondness was replaced by a cold sense of dread. An echoing mantra of _grow, learn, provoke, consume_ , invaded his mind, as if it were the only thing he was allowed to think of. The campfire in front of him faded along with the rest of his friends. Soon, all of his thoughts came to an abrupt halt and Fjord could do nothing but wait until another word boomed into existence.

_Soon…_

His vision returned, and Fjord finally felt like he could breathe again. The voices and lights were enough to ground himself again, but a new feeling had risen to the surface now. He was scared for himself - for what he knew was happening to him.

But most of all, he was terrified for _them_.

* * *

Thoughts swirled around in his head, finally his own, as he made his way over to the rest of the group, finally settling down. He could carry on, he told himself, dropping to sit by the campfire, taking the plate of food that Molly passed to him with a nod. It was growing stronger -  _he_ was growing stronger - but he was in control. As their evening under the stars wound down, conversations fading as they got into their tents and set up for watch, he was almost willing to believe it. Almost willing to believe that the brief interlude into his consciousness was nothing.

Jester sat with him on first watch, her pencils and inks busy in her sketchbook. They’d passed another crossroads market that morning, restocked on supplies both necessary and frivolous. She turned the sketchbook to him across the campfire with a beaming smile, pointing. “Look, it’s you!”

It was, in theory, him. If he were taller, more muscular, with a chiseled jaw and… “Jester, is that…” Fjord gestured to the lower half of the page, feeling warmth fill his cheeks. “Is that a, uh… _artistic_ interpretation?”

She turned the book back, skimming the sketch before covering her mouth to laugh. “I didn’t draw that! It must have been The Traveler.”

“Uh-huh…” He leaned back, took a drink from his canteen and turned to look around their little campsite. All quiet on the open road, all things considered. War marched on in distant lands and while they weren’t opposed to getting into scraps… The few days of peaceful travel had been pleasant. There was no urgency for anything, they weren’t on a timeline to complete a task, weren’t hurting for funds enough to take whatever work came their way. Stopping in smaller towns, revisiting friends they’d made on their earlier journeys… Meandering their way towards what the future held. They’d turned west at the crossroads almost without discussion, looked to the setting sun and what lay beyond the horizon.

He’d had the smallest pull of _wait_ and _not that way_ when the idea had come up, the smallest fear that going west would mean going to the coast, to the ocean, to whatever destiny lay in wait for him… but Fjord knew his group, knew how easily they could be diverted. There were towns and even cities between them and the coast, plenty of places for them to turn in a different direction.

Jester bid him goodnight, went to wake Nott and Caleb for their turn at watch as he slipped into the tent next to Mollymauk, settled down in his bedroll and got comfortable for the night.

_Grow. Learn. Provoke. Consume._

Maybe it was the restless night, maybe the interlude of the previous evening catching up to him, maybe a change in the weather. They’d had a surprising streak of sunshine and warmth for the last week, but as morning dawned, gray and drizzling, the cold creeping up through the tent, through his bedroll and into his bones, Fjord found himself particularly short-tempered.

He mounted up on his horse almost before they’d finished breakfast, his things already bundled away in the wagon, his eyes on the road ahead. Caleb and Beau were studying the map, talking low between them. “Two days… no, three,” the wizard muttered, scrubbing a hand against his face. “We have no reason to push the horses.”

“There’s plenty of reason to push them and not spend another night in the rain,” Beau countered, shivering and rubbing her arms. “You got to sleep in a nice dry tent, I had to sit in this shit all night.”

“We won’t make it in a week if you two don’t hurry up!” Fjord called back to them, flipping his hood over his head. They’d camped out in a clearing, but there were trees ahead, promising some shelter from the steadily increasing rain. “Argue about it in the wagon.”

He turned his back to them a second too late to miss the look, the raised eyebrows between them. Beau carefully rolled the map again, stuffed it away in the back of the wagon with the rest of their supplies. Jester kicked dirt over the ashes of their campfire, lifted her haversack onto her shoulders and mounted a horse near the front of the group.

They moved along steadily, Caleb and Nott guiding the two horses that pulled their wagon, Fjord and Jester to the front of the path and Beau and Molly to the back. He couldn’t hear the others through the rain, though he was sure that Beau and Molly were going at it again behind him. Slowly his jaw unclenched, his hands loosening their death-grip on the reins. It was the weather that had him moody, that was all. The feeling that their good fortune was running short.

“What is the next town, anyways?” he asked, turning to Jester beside him.

She shrugged, looking back over her shoulder and raising her voice. “Caleb! What’s the next town we’re coming to?”

“Ah, that would be Kamordah, in the Brom… Bromein Hills? Something was spilled on that part of the map. And from there we can go south to Deastok, follow the road back east to Zadash or leave it and cross the mountains to the coast.”

“If we wanted to go back to Zadash, we should have stayed south at the last crossroads. I say we look at Kamordah and then go over the mountains!” Jester declared, circling her horse back to ride beside the wagon, her voice raising to address the whole group at once. “You’re from there, right, Beau?”

“Yeah, but I doubt I’d get any sorta… happy welcome home. We can go, I guess.”

Molly’s wicked grin could be heard, even if Fjord couldn’t see it. “Well, we could always spend a few more miserable nights in the rain instead. You seemed eager to avoid that, this morning.” He grunted in pain, huffing and picking up his horse’s pace to fall in next to Fjord. “I’m gonna stay up here for a while. Fjord doesn’t punch as hard as you, Beau!”

Kamordah was okay. Deastok was okay. Going back to Zadash was okay. The Gentleman would have work for them if they wanted it and if not, the city made a nice hub for whatever way they decided to go next. Maybe back south, back to Alfield and their roots as the Mighty Nein, back to Trostenwald where they had all met up for the first time. East to the conflict in Xhorhas, even, across the Ashkeeper Peaks and into the midst of war. As long as they didn’t go west.

The road ahead, steady dark brown surrounded by steady dark green under a sky of gray, shimmered. Flashes of bright blue-green overtook it in front of him. “Molly, are you seein’ this…?” Fjord started, his question trailing away as he turned to his companion. Molly was gone. Vast, endless ocean stretched out where there had once been trees. Fjord jerked his attention forward again just as he felt his horse vanish from under him. He slipped under the still water and flailed his arms desperately, tried to keep himself afloat. His armor was weighing him down, he was going to sink, to drown, to be down there in the black depths again–.

Something wrapped around his ankle.

Before he could take a breath in, it pulled, yanked him down into the depths. The blues and greens faded into blacks and down he still went, salt burning his nose, burning his eyes. Fjord’s mouth opened in a soundless scream, bubbles racing upward and away from him.

He stopped in front of it, his lungs burning, a slow calm settling over him as the eye watched, unblinking. Fjord inhaled tentatively, felt the salt burn into the back of his nose and throat… but not fill his lungs. He could breathe down here. Wherever here was.

_Learn._

The booming, echoing eternity of its voice, around him and inside his head all at once. He waited for more, felt the silence grow heavy. Was he supposed to answer? “I… I’m trying to. The academy wasn’t the right path.”

 _Grow_.

“I’ve become more powerful. Honed my abilities with this… this blade.” It appeared in his hand as he spoke, the falchion, slowly shifted over time, adorned and altered as he grew stronger.

 _Provoke_.

Fjord looked at the eye before him, his blade clenched tightly in his hand. He bit down on his lip, feeling the sting of the salt water as his teeth cut into the skin. “How?”

 _Provoke_.

Frustration surged through him, his fists clenching at his sides. “I can’t do what you want if you won’t _tell_ me what you want!”

 _Provoke_.

Upwards, rushing faster than he could blink, watching the eye fade away into its darkness. Watching the water around him become lighter, lighter, until he was gasping in air, spitting out seawater and blinking at the blue, blue--gray sky. Gray sky and rain falling on his face, the steady beat of horse hooves around him. Fjord snapped to attention, grasped the reins on his horse and drew it to a stop. He looked around, spotted Molly hurrying to catch up behind him.

“Fjord!” His horse slowed as he approached, red eyes darting up and down Fjord’s body.

He looked down, saw the sword in his hand and sent it away. “What just happened?”

Molly’s brows drew together, his voice lowering as the rest of the group made their way up to them. His hand moved slightly, familiar turns of the wrist that indicated magic as he spoke low in the back of his throat. “I think… You should answer that question.”

_Knowledge… Yours… Tell… Nothing…_

The words in his head warred with the words in his ears, fighting against the spell Molly had put on him. He could feel the haze of trust shadowing over his mind and being thrust away, teetered on the edge between giving in to the magic and rejecting its powers.

Molly’s magic surged over him, and at the same time, so did something else, something cold and opaque.

As Molly had intended, Fjord’s mouth was no longer under his control.

“I think… I need to get to the coast.”

He was panting, shaking with exertion and fear.

“I don’ – I don’t know what just happened.” That was true, so it was odd that Fjord didn’t know where the words came from. “I saw… something. I’m not sure. But I think– I need–,” he gasped. Since when was he out of breath? “The coast.”

Jester cantered up and reined in her horse as he was speaking. “The Menagerie Coast? You need to go home?”

He felt himself swallow, and he nodded. “I’m sorry, I–I don’t know what’s happening. Please.” His voice broke on the last word, though why, Fjord had no idea.

Molly, looking slightly ashamed, closed his hand subtly, ending the spell. Fjord felt his body return to his control. He took a deep, steadying breath, pushing away the lingering physical effects of whatever force or emotion had overcome him.

Beau and the wagon were close enough to hear him, although they kept their horses away from the anxious knot around Fjord for fear of causing an accident.

Beau glanced at Caleb, and raised an eyebrow.

“I suppose we will push the horses after all, then,” Caleb said.

* * *

They did indeed push the horses. Fjord’s plea on the road was apparently enough for everyone, because there was no more discussion of their destination.

That night, Fjord had a dream. He became aware of the now-familiar signs of a dream from his patron: the lucidity; the vague, watery light; the way he knew he was very cold but was not made uncomfortable by it.

The golden eye was nowhere to be seen. Ahead of him was a powerful light. Not a light—a light that illuminates nothing, that gives off no warmth, as is only possible in a dream. It was dark green and radiating something that wasn’t heat, but that still drew Fjord in. Then, his patron’s voice. Booming, echoing all around him, and yet also right in his ear, a gentle whisper. The water next to Fjord’s head shivered with it.

_Soon._

In just a few days, they were making good time, and did a quick pass through Kamordah and, to Beau’s evident relief, stayed there only long enough for a warm night’s sleep and to restock on supplies. They had never been to Deastok since forming the Mighty Nein, and still they passed through the major trading hub with as little time wasted as possible. The others had taken his words very seriously, and Fjord didn’t know how to tell them that he didn’t know why he had said them.

Still, as they traveled, his patron seemed pleased. The tenor of his dreams grew ever more eager. Fjord was reluctant to admit the anxiety this produced in him, and grew even more reticent to bring up why he did or did not want to go to the Menagerie Coast. His friends continued to charge forward with a single-mindedness that would be heart-warming if it didn’t make Fjord so nauseatingly anxious.

Jester had interpreted his words as meaning specifically his home, Port Damali, so that was nominally their destination. Nott took to quizzing him on his home, one dreary afternoon on the road.

“Port Damali is on the coast, right? Right on the water?”

She had pulled the wagon up beside Fjord’s horse. She was eyeing him like he was a witness for Jester and Nott’s detective agency.

“Yes, it is… a port,” Fjord said.

“And _which_ water is it on exactly?”

“…The sea.”

Nott looked impressed by this information.

“But don’t you get all – salty?”

Fjord blinked. “From what?”

“The sea! If you’re jumping in and out of it all the time.”

“ _What_?”

In the wagon, Caleb broke down coughing, and Fjord glared at his back. At least someone was having fun.

“Nott, we don’t jump into the water all willy-nilly.”

“But then how do you get places? Boats? Bridges? That would be _so many_ bridges.”

“ _Nott._ ‘On the water’ doesn’t mean, like – literally _on_ the water.“ he fumbled for words, and wondered vaguely if she was doing this to him on purpose. “Like – like Trostenwald is ‘on the lake,’ but it isn’t _on the lake_.”

Nott eyed him suspiciously, and the shadow cast by her mask meant he couldn’t tell whether she was resisting a grin. “So you don’t have to swim everywhere in Port Damali?”

“What the-?  _No_.”

“Good, good.” She nodded in confirmation. She stuck her chin out and, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, sped the wagon up to leave him behind.

Fjord inhaled deeply through his nose to steady himself. For a moment, he thought he smelled the clean salt of the sea, and it calmed him. Then, the smell grew stronger, and the voice in his ear, in his head:

_Soon._

Fjord tried not to gasp, and sat ramrod straight.

_Consume._

He exhaled slowly and carefully, waiting for his world to melt again into that world of green watery gloom. It stayed as it was. For now.

When he let himself relax, he found Caleb, who was sitting in the back of the wagon, staring at him. Not suspiciously, not warily, not eagerly or concernedly. Just staring at him.

Fjord cleared his throat and tried to casually glance to the trees.

Caleb was still staring at him.

Fjord coughed into his arm, then glanced back up.

Caleb was still staring at him.

He spurred his horse on to try to pass the cart, to break the sudden discomfort he felt at Caleb’s gaze. Finally, Caleb looked away. But as Fjord caught up to the wagon and made to pass, it, Caleb’s voice came quietly from the nest of his scarf.

“Fjord.”

Fjord pulled his horse from a trot to a walk, and eased back into his saddle. There went his clean getaway. He glanced at Caleb and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“I want to ask you something,” Caleb said, his gaze far off. “Something the others do not want to ask you, do not think you deserve. You know I know you are a good man, but there is a difference between a good man and a – a perfect man. A hero, a saint. You know you are not a perfect man, and only perfect men do not sometimes need advice from their friends. So, I think we should ask you.”

Fjord sighed wearily. “Ask me what, Caleb?”

“Fjord, why are we going to Port Damali?”

He took a big, steadying breath. “Honestly, Caleb? I don’t know.”

Caleb’s jaw clenched. “You’ve said this again and again, but you don’t tell me what you do know. We are here to help you, Fjord – I think we have proven that with this mad dash across the continent – so let us help you figure out what is happening.”

Fjord didn’t say anything, so Caleb kept talking. “My own knowledge pool is not insubstantial. Beauregard is constantly proving herself surprisingly well-informed as well. Jester and Mollymauk both have dealings with the stranger side of the arcane and the divine. If you will only talk to us, maybe we can determine what it is that robs you of your sight and hearing, that shakes you so in the middle of an empty road.” Caleb indicated around him, at the peaceful forest and the nothing at all that had reason to make Fjord so tense.

_Tell. Nothing._

The voice hissed in his ear again. Fjord had opened his mouth to speak, and now he choked on it, choked on his own spit. He shook his head and tried to clear his airways, tried again to speak, but as the thoughts tried to pass from his brain to his mouth, something seized at his throat and caught them their. He tried to move his tongue, but couldn’t summon any air to pass over it. He wrenched his head backwards but that did nothing to shake whatever it was from his throat. There was a gagging sound, wet and pitiful. There was a hand on his shoulder, on his face, then his throat. It was gentle, but it could do nothing. A thump on his back, which did nothing but break his concentration from where he was trying to reassert control over his mouth. The gagging grew more desperate, and black crowded in on the edges of his vision. A yell, barely audible over the ringing in his ears. He needed help, he needed to tell Caleb – to _warn_ him – but the darkness swallowed him quickly.

He didn’t feel himself slide from his horse.

* * *

He floated in front of the eye, knowing without really seeing the glare it held in his mind.

_Silence._

The cold voice that hissed the word curled around his brain, attaching itself into the back of his mind as his limbs locked up. The growl that followed taking his breath away as he felt his patron’s presence crawl itself into his headspace. His senses being overtaken by their own smothering weight until he no longer felt like he had control of his own body.

_Obey._

_Soon._

_Power. Knowledge. Potential._

_Consume._

The voice paused after that, and the eye stared at him, his head moving in a nod of its own accord, tongue unable to form words. It seemed to satisfy whatever his patron wanted, as the voice returned inside his mind.

_Obey._

_Obey._

_Wake..._

* * *

Fjord’s eyes opened, feeling as though he was watching from miles away and underwater, somewhere deep in his mind. There was nothing but darkness all around him, but even then,

He could see his friends talking to him, words quiet and blurred together, and he knew somewhere he was responding, but it wasn’t _his_ doing that was the cause of it. He watched from behind his own eyes, the feeling of his patron’s influence crawling through his mind, as he assured them everything was fine, and they had to keep going.

His body stood without his input, the breathing of his patron loud in his ear the only clear thing to Fjord, and climbed back onto the horse. He didn’t turn or look to see if they followed when he kicked the horse hard in it’s side to make it move, but the smothered hoofbeats he could hear through the haze of his patron meant they were probably following where he lead.

Fjord pushed against his patron’s presence, trying to throw it out to give him back his own movements, but the resistance thrown back against him was stronger, sending a sharp shard of pain into his soul that forced a cry that didn’t reach his lips.

_Silence._

_Obey._

_Obey._

**_Obey._ **

Fjord was pushed back to a corner of his mind, watching his body as his patron hissed whisper went through his ears, removing the control from him further until all he had was like he were looking through a strange garbled mirror of the world from his eyes, all sound and touch a strange whisper.

He knew they were headed for Port Damali, but still didn’t know the reason for it, or why his patron was so dead set on it. At this point, it couldn’t be anything good if his patron felt the need to seize control of him like this. Fjord felt dread settle in his gut once he realized the gravity of the situation. After the reaction his conversation with Caleb had caused, there was little to no chance of him regaining operation of his own body.

Fjord wanted to scream, to yell, even if he knew no one would ever hear it. A numbing sense of defeat filled him and he, his _soul_ , fell – down into the dark waters that flooded his mind and senses.

He should have said something sooner – he should have told them. But it was too late.

And now, with his body at the mercy of another entity, and his soul being dragged into a void of his own creation... he wasn't sure if there was time to fix it.


End file.
